Ryanair - 8

[TSR2]

Airlines trying now to compete with Ryanair on these routes ie Canaries etc are the ones who will lose out as they simply dont have a low enough cost base to lower fares to compete.

Let's not forget that there are many people out there who would prefer a better product and who are quite willing to pay a little extra.

[wowzz]

TSR2 - Totally agree with you.
I am fortunate to have the choice of EZY or Ryanair for my trips to the UK. I never even look at the Ryanair prices, as I prefer EZY's level of service [ I know they are not perfect, but who is?]. I also get a bigger baggage allowance, and more hand-luggage allowance.
MOL has gone down the cost route and nothing but the cost. Many of us
prefer the service route.

[clareview]

Paying a little extra

The issue is that its not a little extra to fly with the opposition, its usually a lot extra.

[clareview]

The 70m + pax that booked FR last year were obviously happy to pay what they paid.

[BFS101]

The 70m + pax that booked FR last year were obviously happy to pay what they paid.

Obviously some people love FR and others not so much. I have used FR in the past and probably will again, if substantially cheaper than the alternative, or the only direct option available.

However this statistic keeps coming up and up, as quoted above. Who says that these 70m + passengers are happy. Many may have no option but to fly FR for convenience. How many are indifferent, or don't particularly like FR but put up with them?? As an example, how many people shop in Aldi or Lidl, as they feel they have no other option, but would prefer M&S or Waitrose. How many Aldi shoppers actually like or enjoy shopping there? People shop in Primark, would they prefer All Saints or Selfridges if all things were equal??

If passengers have an awful experience, they may avoid FR in the future, but that still leaves those who find the product indifferent or poor, but simply tolerate it for convenience / price, or like I mentioned, have no real alternative. The 70m+ happy flyers, I think is a very misleading statistic.

[racedo]

The large company trying to close a deal that would give a profit of tens of thousands is far less concerned about an air fare costing an extra 100 pounds compared to what they paid 10 years ago. Furthermore, businesses tend to be in the centres of major cities - not really FR's business model at the moment.

In addition, the duty of care placed on employers, and Ryanair's refusal to integrate with business travel agents' systems (no, I'm not talking about the HIgh Street chains) means that apart from niche routes and the risk of being mucked around (explaining to a potential client that Ryanair will put you on the next flight in 3 days time is not remotely plausible) makes companies of 100+ employees wary of Ryanair

Not an unreasonable summation but over last 10 years I have come across a surprising amount of people who see it differently.....Head Offices arre in cities manufacturing are generally not.

Not all business is in cities as many areas across europe have manufacturing plants or business where they need people moved around who happily use FR and other low costs.

I came across one company who a mate works for and they have plants across Europe and before they sent senior people once a quarter because that was what they could afford.

Now with lean manufacturing and logistics they move people around weekly whether its quality / technical / production or logistics and he reckons in any one week they have between 20-40 people moving around, sounded a lot but they employ 5,000 across Europe.

Also know 4/5 people who run their own businesses who use LCC's simply because as one put it, £30 return v £400 I just can't afford and even if 1 in 10 goes wrong and he flies 30 times a year I can afford to pay extra on that one time but £12,000 v £1,000 is 2 months revenue to him.

[racedo]

However this statistic keeps coming up and up, as quoted above. Who says that these 70m + passengers are happy. Many may have no option but to fly FR for convenience. How many are indifferent, or don't particularly like FR but put up with them?? As an example, how many people shop in Aldi or Lidl, as they feel they have no other option, but would prefer M&S or Waitrose. How many Aldi shoppers actually like or enjoy shopping there? People shop in Primark, would they prefer All Saints or Selfridges if all things were equal??

If passengers have an awful experience, they may avoid FR in the future, but that still leaves those who find the product indifferent or poor, but simply tolerate it for convenience / price, or like I mentioned, have no real alternative. The 70m+ happy flyers, I think is a very misleading statistic.

BUT you assume that the same doesn't apply to other airlines.....

U2 ....................cancelled flights and not enough crew last summer which has been well documented on here
BA ..................strikes, baggage losses etc etc on a huge scale over last number of years

[BFS101]

BUT you assume that the same doesn't apply to other airlines.....

Oh I totally do... Regardless of airline, no one can say with any certainty that all, or any proportion of the passengers, were completely happy (unless surverying carried out, and even then how representative would that be??).

It just seems one of the main retorts on this thread, when people question or fault FR service, the statistic of 70m + happy passengers is used. It's just a personal opinion, but think that statistic really has no accuracy at all.

[FR-]

When I talk to customers, so many tell me how good ryanair is, its just tossers and the press who go over the top and point out all the bad bits or when things do go wrong.

fr-

[BFS101]

its just tossers and the press who go over the top

Nice....

And again, anyone could say the same about any airline, with absolutely no degree of accuracy. While customer satisfaction may be hard to accurately judge, and FR do carry a huge amount of passengers, they always seem to fair pretty badly in surveys whether it be Which? or other travel related surverys, from whatever demographic.

But that is really not the point I was making. Simply stating that 70m + passengers use FR annually, does not directly correlate passenger satisfaction, and that can apply to any carrier, or mode of transport.

[racedo]

Nice....

Sadly an element of truth in it.....

BA well known for its "friendly" views for Journo's travelling or the book economy and get upgraded syndrome.

Have met many people who claim X airline is so bad because their cousin's uncle sister flew them or they read in the daily mail about them.

[take-off]

Please tell me where you can book a £50 return flight with Ryanair to the canairies, and i'll book it!!! Last times i checked that wasn't much in it between the airlines by time taxes and charges are put on. Have flown a couple of times with them, not overly plesant but no means as bad as people make out. Biggest gripe i have with ryanair and with many airlines now , is how much they charge to pay with your debit or credit card, other major gripe is being charged to check in online with my own computer, anyway other than that ryanair provide a service at a cost that many people otherwise wouldnt use, albeit not always the cheapest , but in my case i use ryanair as benchmark price and then check the competition out, if your on a budget then people should shop round first.

[davidjohnson6]

Please tell me where you can book a £50 return flight with Ryanair to the canairies, and i'll book it!!!

take-off
I regret I am unable to predict when flights to the Canaries will be dirt cheap, but if you had booked in mid November 2010 for

Saturday 04 Dec Stansted dep 0730 Lanzarote 1145
Sunday 05 Dec Lanzarote dep 1825 Luton arr 2240

then you would have been able to pay a total fare inclusive of non-optional taxes + charges of £37. This of course assumes you can play Ryanair's game - i.e. have a pre-paid Mastercard, and that you have only hand luggage. By virtue of the dates, one implicitly also assumes that you do not have kids who have to do homework at the weekend. I imagine that if one is happy to fly mid-week, the price could be lower.

Certainly this is a remarkable bargain and for some people 4+ hours each way of Ryanair may be a little wearing particularly with all the various assumptions in getting FR's lowest fares, but it seems to indicate that if you are very flexible on dates and prepared to spend a lot of time searching air fares, a round trip from the UK to the Canaries and back can be done for under £50

[IJM]

When I talk to customers, so many tell me how good ryanair is, its just tossers and the press who go over the top and point out all the bad bits or when things do go wrong.

On another thread on this website recently, there were some comments on Ryanair's reported cancellation, at short notice, of routes from Girona, and the impact upon Ryanair customers who had booked on these flights.

Are the Ryanair customers who have been inconvenienced, and have the temerity to comment on it, "tossers"?

Fine way to describe your customers.

[widey158]

take-off,

Depending on where you are from

Midlands:
March 28-April 1 EMA-TFS-EMA £54, if you get the return ticket separately £24+€30=£50
March 29-April BHX-TFS-BHX £50
London:
March 27-31 LTN-FUE-LTN £50

Bottom line is, that's possible. I've been to Canaries for this price (screenshot):
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/773...0854496156.jpg

Back on topic, in case of rapid fuel price spike, I do think Ryanair is in good position. They have the lowest cost base, huge capital, so for them to go under several things have to go wrong, not just one. Moreover, they are cheaper than everyone else and the gap is considerable.

If fuel and ticket prices rise, I think many businesses might switching to cheaper alternatives, i.e. easyJet or some Ryanair too. That's a huge problem for legacies.

[Skipness One Echo]

When I talk to customers, so many tell me how good ryanair is, its just tossers and the press who go over the top and point out all the bad bits or when things do go wrong.

fr-

Actually this is typically circular Ryanair thinking. There are lots of good points about the business model but since the dash for growth phase, closely welded to the "we don't need to listen as there's another new customer along in a minute" is over. Hence you now need to start listening and the first lesson in that is not to box everyone who disagrees with you as a "tosser". We pay your wages, perhaps that's worth remembering.

The article in the Sunday Times is worth reading.

[FR-]

The tosser bit was pointing towards a few on here who just post crap about ryanair all the time. The fact is you dont know what your on about.

fr-

[pwalhx]

I was avoiding comment but have to after the last one.

I guess I am a 'tosser' as I have critisised Ryanair in the past, in my view with good reason.

However I do know what I am talking about. I use Ryanair and I accept when using them that I will get a fairly low level service but at a cheap price and that is why I use them. I do get annoyed when I am in a queue at an airport for an FR flight and people are moaning and have often said what do you expect for what you pay. I suspect a fair proportion of the 70 million passengers think the same as me.

I agree some of the comments on here are O.T.T. but please do not delude yourself regarding service levels.

[INKJET]

I think that people who moan all the time about Ryanair are in fact tossers in the same way that Racedo & FR are tossers for seeing no failings in their beloved Ryanair, in fact neither groups are tossers!!

The Ryanair product is rather good 99% of the time, the problem is the culture behind it, you can not help feeling that you are about to be scammed should you let your guard slip even for a second, i witness day after day people re packing suit cases, throwing away clothes and anything heavy and long queues to pay fines because they thought they were buying a ticket to fly to Spain not entry into a competition to see how well they had read the small print.

Ryanair do have a cost base advantage, but its not what it was once and moving to proper airports will over time level the playing field somewhat.

Any recovery in airline employment will see a mass exodus of pilots, one could fill a 777 a week to Dubai with wannabe 777 drivers from Ryanair, Emirates is an airline to aspire to whether an employee or a passenger, the same cannot be said of Ryanair, but i do not see 777 parked up all over Europe for days on end.

Ryanair product good, culture bad, stagnant market.........

[pee]

Ryanair product good, culture bad, stagnant market.........

That's a pretty good summary.

I think FR has kind of "secret weapon" they could use with a thriving effect. Starting a big PR campaign, like "The New Face of Ryanair". The same punctual, reliable and cheap carrier, but now more customer-friendly, caring. We'll offer now more pleasant experience (blah, blah), generally the better "treatment". It could do miracles, I guess. Worth trying, along with the better schedules (connections?), less deceptive booking system and a few more innovations - it could bring many pax more.